Spotify highlights the weird in year-end campaign

The music streaming service's OOH ads combine the global with the local.

Now that it’s December, media outlets and brands are starting to say farewell to 2016, a rather difficult year to wrap one’s head around or say something nice about. Spotify is finding levity in users’ listening habits, even as those patterns relate to global events.

The music streaming service has been using listening data in various markets, including Canada, in innovative ways to connect to consumers in its marketing. The new tagline “Thanks, 2016. It’s been weird.” picks out some of the stranger patterns and broadcasts them back to the audience.

For example, a U.K. billboard calls out the 3,749 people who listened to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” the day of the Brexit vote. “Hang in there,” the message reads. A Manhattan billboard addresses “the person in NoLIta who started listening to holiday music way back in June.”

The ads are a fun way to tell a community about itself while building a connection to the Spotify brand.